Conceptualizing and Measuring Collective Action In School Management Committees: Validity and Reliability of the CASC Scale

Abstract

In spite of the numerous surveys of public goods provision in school managementcommittees (SMCs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), properconceptualization and measurement of the underlying construct remain a challenge.This study argues that advancement in the survey of public goods in SMCs rests onan appropriate conceptualization and measurement of collective action. This articleconceptualizes and measures collective action in school committees using a 10 itemsinstrument, i.e., the CASC scale. The instrument was applied within the frameworkof a PhD project completed at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Universityof Dar es Salaam in 2015. The validity test, using exploratory factor analysis (EFA),demonstrates that the eigenvalue of the first factor is larger than the eigenvalue forthe next factor (3.2 versus 1.2); and the first and second factors account for 46% ofthe total variance, indicating that the items of the CASC scale are unidimensional.Similarly, the reliability test using Cronbach ' s alpha shows that the coefficient for the10 items is α = 0.75, which is acceptable and respectable. It is expected that theavailability of a CASC scale will inspire surveys of the provision of public goods inSMCs to adopt the relevant theoretical bases of collective action.